


where will you stand?

by wondercurls1917



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Backstory, Zone Five Quarantine Fair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24015004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondercurls1917/pseuds/wondercurls1917
Summary: For the Zone Five Quarantine Fair prompt week from @killjoynest on tumblr!
Relationships: (past) Party Poison/Show Pony (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul & Jet Star & Kobra Kid & Motorbaby & Party Poison (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul & Jet Star & Kobra Kid & Party Poison (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul/Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Jet Star/Party Poison (Danger Days), Kobra Kid & Party Poison (Danger Days)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. beginnings | escape

They were fifteen when they met Jet Star.

It was sort of a shock, honestly. Back before Party Poison existed, back when they were Val Sasaki, Agent Action Cat for the Underground, before the Shadow had swooped in and Sandman had been forced to evacuate the tunnels, they had still been learning how to _rebel._ They fought the system in smaller, menial ways, learned how to shoot, forgot about rules and restrictions.

They learned to forget Bas Wright, the brother who'd left in a tumble of blood-red and thousand-volt rayguns, dragged out into the rising sun by Agent Cherri Cola. As far as they were aware, Tony Rodriguez didn't exist out here in the Zones, which meant neither did Bas Wright.

Which meant Val Sasaki _also_ didn't exist out here, either.

Party was stomping about in a fairly-sized convenient store in Zone 1 when they quite literally ran into about five-feet-nine-inches of pure muscle mass.

The teen—because whoever it was, their face was _young,_ even hidden behind sunglasses so large—looked positively _miserable,_ their long coils of hair pulled back into a ponytail at the back of their head. They wore a leather jacket in dark blue, over a tee shirt that firmly stated _NOT YOUR AVERAGE BARBIE in neon pink lettering_ and a pair of frumpy ripped black jeans tucked into worn black work boots.

"Uh, sorry," the stranger said, and Party felt a little awed at their voice. This person sounded like an _angel._ "Sorry, I was looking for something. Didn't mean to be, uh... in the way."

"No, you're fine," Party responded, just as eloquent. They grimaced at the pitchy voice, far too airy and squeaky to pass as masculine. Fuck, they must've looked like a _rudeass,_ just standing there like they were. "Not looking where I was goin'. I'm, um, Party Poison. They/them."

The stranger's eyebrows crawled up their dark face, rising above their sunglasses. "Jet Star, he/they, I run with WKIL. Mind my askin', but are you— are you _new,_ out here? To the Zones, I mean?"

"Yeah..." they said, pushing their hair out of their face with a huff. They probably looked _bratty,_ now, huffing like an angsty teenager. _Like Sandy,_ a though came unbidden. They noted, absently, that WKIL sounded familiar. "I'm, uh, I come from the Underground. Er..." _What do they call the tunnels out here again?_

"Juvie Hall, I gotcha," Jet Star said, waving a hand. His fingernails were painted chipped gold. They matched the star-shaped studs in his ears, Party realized belatedly. "My crew might actually be able to get you on your feet, then Party Poison. We've got an agent of the Underground with us."

"Do I know 'em?" they said automatically. A common response; it was something Bas would ask them, way back when, had the case been that Sandy was taking the both of them somewhere Val had already gone.

"Dunno," Jet answered, shrugging. A small smile pulled at his lips. "Maybe. I can hitch you a ride there, if you'd like? I have to buy this first—" Here, he held up the basket he'd been carrying in his other hand, filled to the brim with random items. "—and we'd have to stop at a few spots on the way, but then you'd be able to crack at D's station."

That... made sense. WKIL _did_ sound like it'd be a radio station.

Party gathered the few things they'd deigned to purchase and walked alongside Jet to the checkout counter. There, a man with greased-back black hair chewing bubblegum rang them both up. Jet Stat thanked him—apparently he was called _Tommy Chow Mein—_ and then lead Party Poison out of the story with an excited smile and a hurried, _Come on!_

Jet Star slammed their combined bags into the backseat of the dusty but decked-out trans am he drove and then hopped into the driver's side, and Party buckled into their own seat on the passenger's side. The engine started up with a great and awe-inspiring _roar,_ and then Jet turned off the sand-covered parking lot and onto the main highway, Route Guano.

"So..." the taller teen began, and rock music played quietly in the background from low-volume speakers. "Juvie Hall, huh?"

"Yup," Party answered, smirking at Jet's imploring look—not easy to pull _that_ off from behind sunglasses—as they folded their arms behind their head and stretched out. "What's with the glasses, Mr. Star?"

Jet snorted, but took one hand off the steering wheel to lift his sunglasses. His left eye peered open at Party Poison, strikingly dark, probably darker than his hair, but his right eye was... closed. The eye socket looked _sunken,_ almost like there was nothing—

"Ooh, son of a bitch!" Party crowed, staring at Jet Star as he dropped the glasses back down. A small smile was forming on their driver's lips. "Is it— Do you not _have_ that eye?" _Oh shit. Fuck! You're being a rudeass again._ Party backpedaled anxiously. "Wait, I— That was really insensitive of me, I shouldn't have—"

"At least you didn't say _ew,"_ Jet said brightly, smiling with _teeth,_ now, holy _fuck._ Party wasn't gonna survive this day, were they? Shit. "Lost it around when I was six, nearly seven. It doesn't choke me up anymore, and it sure as _hell_ hasn't affected my shooting, Destroya _forbid."_

Party found themself very thankful. "Damn, dude. You're some tough shit, aren't you?" One of Jet's comments hit them a bit... _late._ "How old are you, by the way? I'm fifteen. Sixteen in November."

"Also fifteen." Jet Star's foot pressed heavy on the gas, and Party physically felt the rev of the engine as they sped up. Jet smiled, eager and sly, no longer the gentle giant they'd bumped into. He was a _kid._ "I'll be sixteen in August, though, so."

Which is how Party Poison ended up _howling_ with laughter in the front seat. Jet's snorting laughter joined theirs, and they had the sudden thought that _oh, yes. This boy is a sweetheart. I like this one._

The day was spent passing from one Zone to the next, running errands for this mysterious _D_ figure— _whoever_ he was—that Jet continuously mentioned. He also mentioned a _Pony_ and then also someone called _the Kobra Kid._ The names nagged at their mind, tugging at the memory bits, but Party didn't worry much anymore.

The two of them stopped at the Nest, a place between Zones 3 and 4, then at this mom-and-pop shop in Zone 4, then at a restaurant and bar called _Kiss The Ring_ in Zone 5. It was nearing sunset by the time Jet Star finally put the trans am in park beneath the shade of an overhang alongside a neat motorbike the color of his jacket.

There were two lawn chairs outside the shack, and one of them was occupied by an older teen with a streak of magenta in their hair while the other held a frankly tiny child with a mass of pale brown coils wearing comically large sunglasses and sipping at a drink using a multicolored straw in a strangely diva-like manner. Jet got out of the car first, then Party, and the two of them lugged groceries over to the front door, outside of which the two chairs were positioned.

Party Poison nearly dropped their bags.

The older teen with the magenta-streaks took a peek over his sunglasses at their abrupt stop, and a grin broke across his face, and Party let out one stunned laugh before turning to Jet and saying, "As it turns out, I know him."

"So you _do_ know Agent Double-C?" Jet made a beeline toward the child, kneeling down so they could climb atop broad shoulders. "Hey, Rosa. Rosa, this is Party Poison, neutral pronouns. Party, this is Rosa, she/her. She's Pony's baby."

"If you mean Cherri Cola, then yes," Party said. They hiked up the bags they were holding. "It's nice to meet you Rosa. Havin' fun up there?"

"Jetty is the best ladder!" Rosa cheered, smiling down at them. She was missing some teeth, which added to her cuteness factor.

"It's good to see you again," Cherri said, and he came up beside them to take on some of the load. "Going by Party Poison, now?"

"Who I am," they shrugged, following Cherri into the shack. "I wanted to ask, though, about... Well, that is to say, if you're still keeping tabs on—"

A thin, lithe teen that Party only _barely_ recognized stood to swing Rosa up off Jet Star's shoulders. His hair was bleach-blond, now, and _longer,_ held back by a pair of sunglasses which seemed to match the strange tan-line on his cheeks and around his eyes. He wore a red tank top with the words _eat my ass_ printed in white on it, ribbed black jeans, and black socks patterned with little red snakes on them.

They'd last seen him just over two years ago, now, and warmth welled in their chest at the sight of him.

He _also_ had snakebite piercings. Party swallowed the shock and relief in their throat, turned to Cherri, and said, "The hell did you do my baby brother? Why does he have _facial piercings?"_

"Oh!" their brother, their _thirteen-year-old_ brother, said, disbelief filling his voice. He laughed. "Oh my god!"

Jet Star's eyebrows shot up. "The _Kobra Kid_ is your brother, Party Poison?"

"Yes!" Party blurted, no longer able to contain themself as they dropped their bags and slammed head-on into their brother, picking him up and spinning him like he'd done with Rosa not two minutes ago. "You little string bean lookin' motherfucker! Where have _you_ been? Who gave you _piercings?!"_

"They are my _brand!"_ Kobra shouted between laughs. "I'm the Kobra Kid and they're _snakebites!_ What the hell is a _Party Poison,_ you stupid-ass?"

Party guffawed, letting their brother go so he could tumble to the floor. _"Me,_ you little shit! Holy _fuck,"_ they breathed, clear tears springing to their eyes. "I am _so_ glad you're not dead."

"Ditto," Kobra managed through his own relieved laughter.

At _this_ point did the elusive _D_ roll into the room in a wheelchair, the also-mysterious _Pony_ at his heels _(wheels?),_ and Party had _a lot_ of questions.

It was midnight by the time most of their questions were answered (they still didn't understand how Quincy had come to get captured, get turned organic parental droid, and escape Bat City _with a kid),_ but then Jet Star lead them to the room he shared with Kobra and... someone else.

"That's your brother's bed," he said, pointing out the travel cot pushed into the corner of the room piled with layers of soft things, which— Yeah, that made sense, actually. Kobra was just _like that._ Jet Star pointed to the actual fucking _bunk-bed_ in the room and Party felt themself blanch. "Mine is the top bunk. Bottom should be deserted."

 _"Should be?"_ Party repeated, feeling intrusive and weird. "Why do you have a bunk-bed if you don't have the extra person?"

"My younger brother used to have the bottom bunk," Jet admitted, and a strange look flitted into his one-eyed gaze. He'd shed the sunglasses hours ago now. The older teen cringed, shrugged and gestured toward the bunk-bed. "He left around eighteen, nineteen months ago now. Nobody's managed to find him."

Party sighed, feeling... They didn't know. Guilty? Empathetic? Maybe tired. They approached the bottom bunk, covered as it was in blankets—they were all felt, over a bare mattress and bare pillows. They reached up to pull back the covers, and—

A head of matted black hair waited beneath the cover of a felt blanket, paired with a dirt-covered face over scratches, scars, and gaunt features. Party Poison stood and stared for what felt like an eternity. The bruise-rimmed eyes stayed profusely shut, and the callused hands near the surprisingly young face twitched in sleep.

Except they _knew_ this face. This was the Ghost of the Ruins, the kid that wandered in the ashes of the Tellurium District to collect lost things or left things. The same one who'd left a week before their planned escape with Bas, the one that only succeeded halfway.

Jet Star sidled up beside them to see what the matter was, and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight. He pressed a palm to his face, covered his mouth, and moved immediately to the doorway.

"Dr. D!" the teen hissed frantically. "Dr. Death, we gotta situation!"

"What is it, son?" D's soothing voice called from the den.

"My little brother's come back," Jet said meekly, looking every inch a scared fifteen-year-old who wasn't yet ready for the world. "Ghoulie is home."

Party had barely a moment to rear back as uncanny radiation-green eyes snapped open, and then the Kobra Kid was slamming around the corner to charge through the door, and Jet Star flailed to prevent Fun Ghoul from making a mad grab at Party Poison's throat.

And somewhere in the Beyond, the Phoenix Witch winked at Destroya and the two of them smiled.


	2. neutrals | gangs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm hella late!! But i chose gangs. (feat. the ex organic droid Brobeck, his husband the droid Cain, and their scrapped droid children Cora and Axel from my shortfic by the title "brobeck")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of unwanted sexual assault and also for Val being a HUGE bothersome dick. does not follow canonical storyline, obv

The first time Cherri Cola sees the Girl since Show Pony's monitor shutdown, she's hanging with this group called the _Ultra Vs_ and he knows, _instantly,_ that something is undeniably, _extraordinarily_ wrong.

He's making a regular visit to the Nest—it's routine, something to keep him busy, and some old friends live here, beside. Dr. Death Defying sends him off with the parting words of: _"You'd be careful to keep an eye on those kids, Cherri. They're going to be trouble today, I already know."_ Cherri had waved him off as just a batty old man who'd long since gone stir crazy and rode to the Nest on his bike.

 _The Kid's bike,_ some menial voice had hissed in the back of his mind.

 _It's not a betrayal if there's no one there to betray anymore,_ something else that sounded suspiciously like Fun Ghoul had snapped back.

So Cola had made his way over to the Nest. He is there before long, stops by to see Brobeck and Cain, ignores how his heart hurts to see Axel and Cora still young as the day they'd arrived, full of memories and childhood wonderment despite it all. Beck has red streaks in his hair—they've faded a pale pink by now—and Cherri compliments that he likes the color, and then he turns to leave just as the door slams in.

It's a teenager, a little older than the Girl, who wears his hair bleached white and a white leather jacket with red tubing. A pair of fangs strung to a necklace hangs around his neck. Behind him, the twins Vaya and Vamos roar in singing _Piano Man,_ and Cherri feels dread in the pit of his gut when the Girl meets his eyes and he sees no startled flash of recognition.

"Uh," Cain starts, sounding skittish, "what's up, you guys?"

"I think you _know_ what's up," the leader growls threateningly, and then Beck clamors to stand in front of Cain and Axel and Cora, elbow crutch clacking. The leader scoffs. "Oh, _please._ You _really_ think you can protect everyone here? You're a _cripple,_ Brobeck."

"Val, chill out, man!" Vamos calls, and they're wearing the purple bracelet today. They flick their pink hair from their face. "You don't need—"

"—to be so _mean,"_ Vaya finishes, running a hand through his—pink bracelet, today—teal hair. The sides are getting scruffy on his but not his twin's. He'll need a haircut sooner or later. "Plus, look, they've got a _guest."_

"An armed guest," Cherri comments when the leader—this _Val_ character, which doesn't sit right with him, considering—makes no move to back down. "I'd watch your mouth _and_ your back if I were you."

"Old man," Val grunts. He turns to face the twins and the Girl. "You hearin' this, Girl? This fuckin' _lawyer_ is here bossing _me_ around! The droids owe me some carbons, I think they should give me my carbons. What's so bad about getting what you're owed?"

It seems to hit her then that she _knows_ Cherri, at which point she has the gall to look guilty and averts her gaze. Vaya and Vamos chatter loudly about something or other—which is how Cherri Cola hears something about _jagoffs_ at the Nest, which... isn't a good thing.

Given whose apartment Cherri is currently standing in, and the fact that Cora is trying to leave the room with Axel while evading Val's notice, and that Cain looks just this side of snapping, there are very few conclusions to come to. Firstly, that the jagoff, whoever it was, who tried to use Cora or Axel _(or both,_ a growling, furious thing notes in the back of his head) had cornered the children _alone._ That, or their parents were held away from them.

Secondly, Val and his crew had intercepted and gotten the offender to lay off somehow.

Thirdly, the price of Val's good deed is, for all apparent reasons, _steep._

Cherri Cola takes a deep breath, smooths through his hair despite it being a tangled mess of drooping curls, and marches up to the bleach-blond boy in the front hall. Val glares him down to no avail. Cola presses a hand to the hot pink blaster in his holster that once belonged to Pony.

"Leave this place," he says, calm and calculated, "or I'll drag you out myself."

"You couldn't if you _tried,"_ Val spits.

"Val," the Girl warns, voice a halting thing, _frightened._

Cherri wants to hush her, call her Sugar or Honeybee or Sweet Thang or something like that, but he doesn't. He _can't._ He's loathe to admit he doesn't know how to _be_ around her anymore, can't comprehend coexistence.

 _Show Pony would,_ something shy bleats in his head, like a scared Tony Rodriguez freshly cut by the memory of Quincy Newman's death. _Ae would know how to soothe her._

"What," Val snaps, turning to her and the twins. Girlie blinks hard. Even Vaya and Vamos flinch back from the teen, his bared teeth and wild eyes. Cherri is struck by the thought that, once upon a time, overlooking a so-close-yet-so-far opening to the desert, shoving their brother into Cherri's grip, _Party Poison_ had looked a bit like that.

Not exactly. Party's anger was more righteous fury; they'd told Cherri _go, leave me behind! I'll see you on the other side, Agent!_ and then turned back to the fray. This Val kid, with his impatient petulance and mean gait, he's looking for extremism. Higher purpose. He seems to want what Party had been like, but he had one thing off: Party Poison had already achieved _higher purpose._

He's got Girlie under his pull because he looked like that, looked like Party fresh out of the barber chair in Dr. D's bathroom, the day before Pony had thrown a box of radiation red hair dye at their face.

Cherri steps forward. Val takes a flighty step back.

Then the kid draws his raygun, and Cherri disarms him and restrains him against the wall of the front walkway within seconds. Cherri is a trained ex-drac who grew up shooting cans past the Radiation Belt until his cousin vanished. Cherri is a grown ass man and Val is a _kid,_ easily ten years younger than he, who _does_ know right from wrong, and steals from innocent people _anyway._

Cherri then stomps him past the twins and the Girl, through the door, and shoves. Val staggers, doesn't fall, and Cherri Cola blocks his attempt to come back in. Vamos is talking quietly to their twin, and he feels the Girl at his back after a momentary pause.

"He has," she starts, then stops, a creaking whimper breaking her voice. "Val Velocity has Party Poison's mask, Cherri."

So Cherri Cola drags Val Velocity by the collar of his nametag, stops before the armor of Destroya, and sends up a quick prayer.

Val throws the mask one way and runs the other way, and Cherri turns to duck through the crowd once he grabs it, finding his way back to Beck and Cain's place, where Vaya, Vamos, and the Girl are watching from the doorway.

"This," Cola says, holding up the mask, "needs to get to the Mailbox, don't you agree, Angel?"

The name slips out, but Girlie lets a watery smile pass over her face. "Yeah, Cherri," she agrees. She sniffs, squaring her shoulders. "You changed your hair. It has a blue streak instead of a magenta one."

Cherri nods, then turns to the twins. "You guys don't have to stay with that douche, y'hear?" He channels his Dr. D. "Someone who wants more from you than you're able to give isn't worth your time. Be kind to each other, be safe out there trying to find another crew—not a _gang,_ understand?"

"Yes, Sir," the twins agree, perfectly in sync.

"Wait," Vaya says slowly. "Without Val—"

"—we don't have a place to stay," Vamos finishes. "What are we—?"

"You guys can stay with us," Brobeck chimes in from further in the house. "If you— If you want. Like old times."

Cherri recalls a time before sweet old Frida Kahlo had turned to rose dust, when Beck was still new to the Zones and these same twins were still untouched by the carelessness of destruction. The twins exchange a glance with each other, then look to Brobeck. The two of them head further inside.

"You guys can stay a while, too," Cain calls.

Girlie leans her head against Cherri's arm and he knows he can't accept that offer. "Thanks," he says instead, "but I'd rather get her back home. See you guys around."

And then they turn a corner, and Girlie's grey eyes go startlingly wide. She's excited, he knows, about the bike, tells him she's been mostly on foot for the past few years. Cherri's listening, he swears, but right there in front of him, for the briefest of moments, he sees the little Girl who'd bounced on the only good mattress and hid in Pony's room during acid rainstorms.

And they go home, as the Ultra Vs disband as a gang one last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @killjoynest if you see this I'm sorry I'm doing this late I amn just...... tired. Schoolwork. hhnnngg


End file.
